Lincoln

Steven Spielberg has long been my favorite director. It probably has a lot to do with Jurassic Park being the seminal movie of my life. I believe my desire for film began with that movie. It was the movie that made me realize exactly what movies could do. Spielberg is responsible for many of my favorite cinematic stories and even his mediocre movies have big shiny bright spots. He has wanted to make this Lincoln picture for a decade it seems. At one point Liam Neeson was attached to play Lincoln, but as time went on he got too old, or maybe just changed his entire career trajectory. Either way Spielberg ended up winning the Lincoln lottery with Daniel Day-Lewis. Often touted as the best actor alive, you know you are going to get a live wire performance out of Day-Lewis. With Spielberg at the realm of a slice of real life History, chances are you are in for a treat. Look at his real life history track record: Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List and Munich (watch Munich again and tell that movie does not rock). Spielberg knows this terrain. The reviews are overwhelmingly in favor of Lincoln as one of the year's best. It has become a must see for the educated film goer. It is leading the charge in circles that believe smart well made movies can make money with movies like Argo and Flight as well. It is a no-brainer! right?

Opening up weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln focuses on our 16th President's bid to get the 13th amendment added to the constitution and therefore ending the Civil War. He has just been elected to his second term and he wants to throw his weight around and do something he truly believes in, even though the odds are stacked against him. he has to get the 2/3 majority vote in Congress and that means turning Democrat votes from no into yes and they are not much inclined to do that. The majority of the film is this fight. It is a fight with words and stories and it is a valiant fight to be sure. Lincoln is the focus of the film. It is through his eyes that we see this process. We meet his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln (A sublime Sally Field), his two sons, Robert and Tad (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gulliver MacGrath, respectively) and his trusted staff played by a host of wonderful actors like David Strathairn, James Spader, Bruce McGill and Tim Blake Nelson. Also along for the ride are John Hawkes, Tommy Lee Jones, Lee Pace, and Hal Holbrook as well as a host of other really great character actors.

Lincoln is a great film. It is intense, well crafted, well acted and mostly, well written. Every scene has dialog that just pops and reveals deep insight to the characters and their motives. The film unfolds like a play, which is not shocking because Tony Kushner wrote the screenplay. Spielberg and Kushner trust the audience and the audience is reward with phenomenal scenes strung together into a great movie. The scenes are long and intensely played and intensely shot. No one making this movie was afraid of long scenes, or scenes where there is nothing but talking and it works. Everything about this movie worked, so why when it was over was I just left feeling kind of "whatever" about it?

Expectations. They are a bitch. For weeks I had been hearing about how this was the best movie of the year. 2012 is a killer year for movies. Every critic and pundit tend to agree on that. In a year that is so full of great movies, for so many to call Lincoln the best, well that just raised my expectations and Lincoln fell short of them. Lincoln delivered on every promise. The team for the film is remarkable they all succeeded. John Williams' score soars, Spielberg's directorial touches show restraint when needed, Kushner's words jump off the screen, and every single actor does exquisite work. Day-Lewis is beyond captivating as Lincoln. He embodies everything we know and things we did not know about Lincoln, and he clearly loves Kushner's words. Yet, there was something just not there for me. There was a quality I was expecting and it was missing. I have no idea what that missing quality is. I am stumped. The movie is great. it will deserve any awards it is nominated for, especially the acting from Day-Lewis, Sally Field and especially Tommy Lee Jones. I think James Spader might have been my favorite among all of those. he is so weird and to see him in something so traditional, but add his weird flare to it, was brilliant.

I loved the care with which they handled Lincoln's death. I loved how intimate the whole movie was even though it was about the ugliest of times in American History. I loved the idealism, the hope and the optimism Spielberg has for America and how Lincoln embodied all of that. I loved the touches in the script where Day-Lewis got to show Lincoln the comedian, and Lincoln the story teller. I have nothing bad to say about the film. It does everything right and I have no doubts that I will watch it a second time. it just did not do the things to me that Argo or Looper did. There is nothing that I didn't expect. There is a world of care within the film. It is a personal film for everyone involved, or at least it comes off that way. I believe it will stand the test of time and who knows, maybe I will love it later in life. For now though, it is a wonderful film that I just cannot seem to fall in love with. It is almost as if it is too on the nose. Maybe that is the problem, it is too technically perfect? Who knows, I am strange.

Final Grade: B